This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Is the decline in teen mental health mostly about parenting?
https://ifstudies.org/blog/parenting-is-the-key-to-adolescent-mental-health
A mildly interesting competing hypothesis in itself compared to "smartphones and instagram wreck teen girls' psyches". But where it really gets interesting is here:
That paragraph actually understates the findings compared to the chart just above it, if you click on the link- just look at the stark discontinuity between 'very conservative' and everyone else. In fact the order by political ideology, on parenting quality, is 1) very conservative 2) blank spot 3) conservative 4) moderate 5) very liberal 6) liberal. And I would hazard a guess that this is majorly correlated with the other two, quality of parents' relationship, factors.
Now there's a couple of hypotheses as to why this is- it could be that parenting has just been getting shittier recently, that more conservative types are somewhat insulated from the trend by being, well, conservative, and that there's some population discontinuity between 'liberal' and 'very liberal'. This could be red tribe-blue tribe ethnogenesis manifesting itself in an interesting way- the red tribe adopted adaptive parenting measures, the blue tribe didn't(or alternatively, they both used to share good parenting practices but as part of ethnogenesis the blue tribe is moving away from them, which I guess is pretty close to the first explanation. It seems pretty clear that they didn't both used to have terrible parenting with the red tribe moving away because teen mental health is a relatively newer problem). It could be a regional difference. It could be that, given fertility differences by political ideology, conservative parents have more role models allowing them to more easily adopt good parenting practices. Personally, I lean towards number two, myself- I'm reminded of a section in Irreversible Damage, describing how nearly every girl with rapid onset gender dysphoria had a liberal mother, and some had country club republican/rino fathers but most of the fathers were liberal as well. The section goes on to claim that at least some parents of daughters with ROGD found success in sending their daughter to live with more conservative relatives, resulting in desistance. That's obviously not conclusive, or even particularly strong, evidence(and it's also confounded all to heck by duh), but it's a second datapoint on a trend.
In any case, it seems like the other interesting question raised by this report is, well:
My assumption is that inscrutable bureaucratic reasons are the main factor in that. But it's worth noting that this is probably the main explanatory factor behind why conservative teens have so much better mental health than liberal ones; after all, the competing "it's smartphones and instagram" hypothesis doesn't explain this. And even if you assume parenting doesn't matter much in the long run, it doesn't pass the smell test to say it doesn't affect kids while they're being parented.
I think just assuming for a moment that the results are accurate, a couple of things stand out about conservative parenting particularly.
First, parenting for conservatives is a focal point for life. Family formation and child rearing are central to the conservative and they will absolutely rearrange their lives and schedules to focus on their family life. If they see public schools as a problem, they’ll do whatever they have to do to route around the problem. If they have to scrape by on one income, drive beater cars and live in a tiny house or apartment so that mom can stay home with the kids they will do that. Kids do pick up on this. They know the kinds of sacrifices their parents are making for them. They know that the reason dad works long hours is so that they can have the best life possible. And this tells them they matter to their parents enough to make serious sacrifices for them, which tells them that they are absolutely valued.
Second they tend to teach self discipline, which in my mind is absolutely critical to developing self esteem because disciple is what makes achievement possible. And achieving things is where real self esteem comes from. A kid that lacks the self discipline to make the baseball team, or keep a clean room or get decent grades or whatever else fails a lot, and he doesn’t have the mindset of “I’ll do this thing differently and then I can make the team or get the grade next time.” Without knowing how to succeed in his efforts life becomes arbitrary and frustrating because he has no idea why he’s such a failure. This is why so many children of liberals love Jordan Peterson. His advice isn’t magic, there’s no “one weird trick” he’s telling people what conservative parents have been saying all along — get disciplined, do the work, get along with people, and learn some self control. Without those things you get lost and often depressed.
Third, the conservative mindset itself might well be protective. It doesn’t focus too heavily on how you feel at the moment, which prevents rumination on negative emotions. Not to say don’t feel them or that they don’t matter at all, but the conservative mindset does not see feelings as facts in themselves. They see it “either you do something about the problem, or learn to live with it.” It’s a kind of practical stoic mindset. Yes, people can be jerks, don’t be one of them, but also don’t let them ruin your day. This is a major issue I have with modern therapeutic culture in which people are encouraged to focus on feelings, treat them as facts, and do nothing about them. If I wanted to cause depression, that would be the ideal way to do it. Especially if I can make you anxious about things you have no control over.
At a party last week, I was chatting with a liberal couple whose kid will be starting public high school in a couple years. The place I live uses a lottery system: you can end up with your kid assigned to any school in the city, many of which are bad. I asked, what if you end up with a bad (academically failing, unsafe) school? Their response (after some throat clearing that no school is bad) is that they are committed to public schooling, and no matter which one he gets sent to or if he'd prefer a different one, they'll send him there.
I can get this mindset as a cope, if you don't have resources. But they do have resources and could easily afford any of the well-regarded private schools. My unsaid thought was "that's child abuse."
If they can easily afford any of the well-regarded private schools, their kid will be fine wherever they go.
But the kid would likely be better off were they to go to a well-regarded private school. We calculate child support based on what the parent can afford, not based merely on what is necessary for the kid to be "fine", because the child is entitled to parental support. Why shouldn't we similarly require parents with the necessary means to not skimp out on their child's education?
Yes, I am sure the kid would be better off in many respects. But the claim was that it was child abuse.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link